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Heroism medal

10-31-2012, 06:15 PM

NOTE: I am neither condoning nor condemning this, but came across it and wanted to see what others thought of the situation. I have NO connection to this at all.

To me it appears that the Scout's application did not get filled out properly, as there was no mention of a statement being prepared or what was done which was of heroism. Also, a post here: http://www.facebook.com/oabsa by the propnent of the link below stated that "Turning down our son's election to the Order of the Arrow was the hardest decision we had to make....Arrow of Light son was honored with the invitation," a big red flag appeared for me, since no one, regardless of situation, can be elected to the OA if they have not achieved First Class rank.

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Neither do I. I just saw it and wondered what would happen if it was true. Obviously, either there is some corrupt practice in OCC or someone is lying because since I believe 1940 honorary memberships in the OA are forbidden. That really leads me to question the truthfulness of this. I do not intend to sign this petition, but thought it could be an interesting point to look at.

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Hard to judge from this distance. If their Council is anything like ours, I would not doubt the application for the award might be "misplaced" or "edited" perhaps. Then too, it is not usual for the parent to write the petition for the award. I have been told that it is far the best for a non-family member to make the application.
And there is a gradation of awards. Perhaps they felt he deserved the higher award. I wonder if National told them the why of the denial?
Interesting that OCC would use his story for promotional purposes, then find it hard to use his picture or to laud his help in time of trouble. Nothing is said here as to what exactly he did other than make the victim comfortable (shock position?).

I could not find the OA/Facebook exchange.

Not enough detail for me to sign it.

The best way to become a hero is to be in the wrong place at the right time.

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Heroism Award. The Heroism Award may be awarded to a youth member or adult leader who has demonstrated heroism and skill in saving or attempting to save life at minimum risk to self. Recognition may be given to a youth member or adult leader. The action taken need not involve attempts of rescue at risk to self but must put into practice Scouting skills and/or ideals. First awarded in 1923.

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Even if the info in the alleged firefighter's letter is accurate, it would likely only garner an award of merit of some sort. Of course, the rest of the petition is so disjointed and meandering, that it makes very little sense to me. Even those on that site are not really responding to it, as it has very few signatures even after weeks.

Something is odd; possibly just another publicity stunt or attempt to embarrass Scouting.

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Yep, definitely a gadfly of some sort. Could not help myself, I Googled her. Has sued the city of Buena Park regarding zoning issues and accused them of racial prejudice. List herself as a Peace Advocate for occupation and claims to have been educated at Carnegi Mellon and Harvard, as well as worked for various branches of military support in the government. Guess I just will never understand some individual's reasoning, or lack of it.

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From what little I could glean from mom's discourse, the scout probably deserves some recognition. A heroism medal? I don't think so. Some less than that.

Once I waded through mom's petition, found it interesting how little detail she provided about the actual lifesaving effort.

Whatever agenda mom may have, the council did themselves no favors by misplacing the nomination package, then misspelling the scout's name on the certificate.

While we don't have the council's side of the story, I can easily see this happening. Having been in four councils in the last five years, poor administrative practices are unfortunately common. Things are late, misplaced and then prepared and presented in a sloppy manner. Correspondence/office management is a lost art.(This message has been edited by desertrat77)

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The petition is so poorly worded and vague that I could not possibly support it. I fail to see demonstration of racism or enough details to determine anything about the story. The petition is filled with grammatical errors and is badly written. I doubt anyone deserves anything.

That being said... BSA is well-known for its incompetent buffoonery, so I would still recommend that someone within BSA who still has a pulse investigate the claim and then put out a press release about what the finding were rather than ceding the stage to this goofball. I have my doubts that the petition is entirely unfounded due to many, many life-long experiences watching BSA make very bad decisions almost all the time.

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"First Class" used to be the highest Girl SCout award, prior to 1980...equivalent to the Gold Award today. My wife is one, and whenever I want to pick a fight, I remind her she's "only First Class"...At the time, it was considered equivalent to Eagle.

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Yep; to that I would certainly agree. It is odd, particularly since the info on-line regarding her issues with the city are pure legalese, though could have been done by her husband who supposedly is a book publisher and connected, at one anyway, to a law firm.